This invention relates generally to the field of disc drive data storage devices, and more particularly, but not by way of limitation, to the protection of a hard disc drive from damage due to mechanical shocks to the drive.
Disc drives are commonly used in workstations, personal computers, laptops and other computer systems to store large amounts of data in a form that can be made readily available to a user. In general, a disc drive comprises one or more magnetic discs that are rotated by a spindle motor at a constant high speed. The surface of each disc is divided into a series of data tracks which are spaced radially from one another across a band having an inner diameter and an outer diameter. The data tracks extends generally circumferentially around the discs and store data in the form of magnetic flux transitions within the radial extent of the tracks on the disc surfaces. Typically, each data track is divided into a number of data sectors that store fixed sized data blocks.
A head includes an interactive element such as a magnetic transducer which senses the magnetic transitions on a selected data track to read the data stored on the track, or to transmit an electrical signal that induces magnetic transitions on the selected data track to write data to the track. The head includes a read/write gap that positions the active elements of the head at a position suitable for interaction with the magnetic transitions on the data tracks of a disc as the disc rotates.
As is known in the art, each head is mounted to a rotary actuator arm and is selectively positionable by the actuator arm over a preselected data track of the disc to either read data from or write data to the preselected data track. The head includes a slider assembly having an air bearing surface that causes the head to fly over the data tracks of the disc surface due to air currents caused by rotation of the disc.
Typically, several discs are stacked on top of each other and the surfaces of the stacked discs are accessed by the heads mounted on a complementary stack of actuator arms which compose an actuator assembly, or "E-block". The E-block generally includes head wires which conduct electrical signals from the heads to a flex circuit, which in turn conducts the electrical signals to a flex circuit bracket mounted to a disc drive basedeck. For a general discussion of E-block assembly techniques, see U.S. Pat. No. 5,404,636 entitled METHOD OF ASSEMBLING A DISK DRIVE ACTUATOR, issued Apr. 11, 1995 to Stefansky et al., assigned to the assignee of the present invention and incorporated herein by reference.
As will be recognized, a continuing trend in the industry is the reduction in size of modern disc drives. As a result, the discs in the disc stacks of modern disc drives are increasingly being brought closer together, providing narrower vertical gaps between adjacent discs. Although facilitating greater amounts of storage capacity, such narrow vertical spacing of the discs gives rise to a problem of increased sensitivity of the disc drives to non-operating mechanical shocks; particularly, predominant failure modes in modern disc drives have been found to include damage to the surfaces of the discs and damage to the actuator arms as a result of contact between the actuator arms and the discs from mechanical shocks encountered during the shipping and handling of the drives. Computer modeling has shown that the first mechanical bending mode of the discs typically causes over 50% of the motion between the arms and discs in selected disc drive designs. The bending mode is generally dependent upon the material, diameter and thickness of the discs, and these factors are not readily modified in a disc drive design.
Additionally, as disc drive designs continue to decrease in size, smaller heads, longer and thinner actuator arms, and thinner gimbal assemblies will continue to be incorporated into the drives, significantly increasing the need to protect the disc drive from damage as a result of incidental contact between actuator arm/gimbal assemblies and the surfaces of the discs.
Thus, there is a need for an improved approach to reducing the susceptibility of damage in disc drives as a result of non-operating mechanical shocks.